Anything or Place Named after an Ancestor?

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As you work gathering names and information for your family tree, you can see given and surnames repeated over the generations. Children and grandchildren named for their ancestors. It has always been a common practice.

However, an interesting twist is to see if any object, street, building, landmark or place was named for an ancestor. Once located, truly there is a great story behind that naming.

It can anything named for someone … the town’s name, a county, a school, a military or civilian ship, a monument, a business, etc. It doesn’t mean the person was famous or did something outstanding. Sometimes, it is solely the fact that person, for whom a place was named, just happened to be the first there. Another reason is when new neighborhoods were developed and the streets laid out, it may have been the developer who selected names (given or surname) of family members or workers in the company to have a street named for.

So how do you find any family names for places or locations? Start with the hometown and home county of a family on your tree. Check city directories, Google the name and the town see if there is a match.

If an ancestor was an early settler to a region, their name could appear somewhere in the town’s buildings, streets, creeks, lakes, or rivers. Yes, bodies of water can be named for people.

Do a general Google search of a surname and especially of ‘Images’ that show photos of locations with a tie-in to the name being searched. Check also middle names, maiden names, and different spellings for names, you never know. Once you discover a place named for an ancestor, learn WHY?? Check hometown newspapers and local museums.

The following are just a couple examples of people’s names for locations. Click on the two links below.